gobbledigook.

[ a morbid fascination that borders on obsession. ]

Sunday, June 18, 2006
120 seconds of madness.

Once again, the Azzurris shot themselves in the foot, right at the vital moment. Dirty play and inconsistency has now become synonymous with the Italian soccer team, the new Italian job they call it. What was Zaccardo thinking? Such pedestrian nochalant defending. Even Buffon was guilty at certain points for being too casual, from throwing the ball to saving. Gilardino's goal was rather out of the blue, a well taken header, and he just faded away after that. In a spade of 120 seconds, Italy, leading 1-up, were equalized, and one man down. I've yet to forgive Totti for his flying saliva 2 years ago at Greece, and now De Rossi wants to be the new bad boy of Italian soccer by flinging his elbow into McBride's face. Straight red, what do you expect?

Even so, they did well to cope with 10 men until the dismissal of Mastroeni, which was quite harsh, but deserving as the American were overly aggresive with late tackles and a few incidents of shirt tugging. Yes he went in with both legs, which warrants a red. But he got the ball first. I guess the ref was thinking of giving a yellow but feels the offence is between a yellow and a red and so he flashes the red. Same goes for the Pope incident. They paid the price of their team mates fouls.

Toni was disappointing. Del Piero and Iaquinta couldn't do much either. Gattuso was an immediate impact and he scored and i felt the goal was legitimate as Toni wasn't offside when the freekick was taken. The Italian man-of-the-match is in my opinion was Pirlo, again, no doubt. He was the orchestra in midfield and all over the field. Compounded with the absence of De Rossi for most of the match, he did well just as Donovan was to the Americans.

Group E is now open. Game on, down to the wire. Techincally the Azzurris require just 1 more point to ensure a second round spot, but a victory over the injury hit-Ghana defeated Czechs would be a good way to cap their group stages, and just to be safe. Plus finishing top of the group would mean avoiding the table toppers of group F, Brasil, which in any case, would most likely collect 9 points comfortably. Lets just hope Italian soccer would not rear its ugly head again on the international stage. Enough of premature exits.

Forza Italia.